startvs.cmd == no projects loaded correctly

Describe the bug

When I follow CONTRIBUTING.md to open the .sln in VS, I get the following error:

…followed by the following solution window:

The contents of the Solution output window are as follows:

C:\code\git\tye\src\tye\tye.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\test\E2ETest\Microsoft.Tye.E2ETests.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting.Diagnostics\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting.Diagnostics.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting.Runtime\Microsoft.Tye.Hosting.Runtime.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Core\Microsoft.Tye.Core.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\test\UnitTests\Microsoft.Tye.UnitTests.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions.Configuration\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions.Configuration.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\Microsoft.Tye.Proxy\Microsoft.Tye.Proxy.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\test\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions.Configuration.Tests\Microsoft.Tye.Extensions.Configuration.Tests.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\test\Test.Infrastructure\Test.Infrastructure.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

C:\code\git\tye\src\tye-diag-agent\tye-diag-agent.csproj : error  : The project file cannot be opened. Unable to locate the .NET SDK. Check that it is installed and that the version specified in global.json (if any) matches the installed version.

To Reproduce

Initially, when I took those screenshots, I was running build.cmd and startvs.cmd in a non-administrator PS terminal.

As I’m documenting this, I tried it in an admin PS window and I got different (but not great) results. When run build.cmd, it seems to start off fine:

…but it ends badly:

Further technical details

• Include the output of tye --version

PS C:\code\git\tye> tye --version
0.8.0-alpha.21352.1+fc0ab39f1bd2f1cd4d5b5c0a07f66f61a44263ea

• If possible rerun the command with -v debug and include the output
• The platform (Linux/macOS/Windows) Windows 10 (up to date)

[philliphoff]

@ignacioerrico On a newly-minted VM, I wasn’t able to reproduce the command line build error, but I was able to reproduce the VS 2019 solution load/build issue, which allowPrerelease resolves, so thanks for that.

[ignacioerrico]

Same thing here.

The issue occurs if you use a non-preview version of Visual Studio, like the one in the screenshot shared by @alexdresko. (To work with Blazor, at least VS 2019 v16.6 is required, so that’s probably the lowest non-preview version that is possible to use.)

By default, VS 2019 has the option Use previews of the .NET Core SDK unchecked, so the SDK resolver will ignore the prerelease version 6.0.100-preview.6.21355.2 installed by the script build.cmd, and that’s the only version meant to be used.

I suggest allowPrerelease be set to true for the sdk object in global.json → reference. This will only take effect when working with the Tye solution. The setting is ignored if you use a preview version of Visual Studio, so it makes sense to have it.

Since it’s a minor change, I’ll go ahead and raise a PR for that.

NB. An alternative would be to manually check the option to Use previews of the .NET Core SDK in Visual Studio (Tools > Options > Environment > Preview Features), but that would affect all solutions you work with, not just Tye.